What Can You Do With 65,000 Ultimate Rewards Points?

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You can get 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points with the Chase Ink Bold and the Chase Ink Plus after spending $5,000 within 3 months up to Saturday, June 22, 2013.The sign-up bonus reduces to 50,000 points after that, which is still a great deal.

Blog traffic is at an all time high because of this offer, and I’ve been getting lots of emails on how to use Ultimate Rewards points, so I though I’d share a few ways to use 65,000 Ultimate Rewards points.

You get 60,000 points from the sign-up bonus and 5,000 points from the $5,000 minimum spending requirement.

1. $650 CASH BACK

You can turn your 65,000 Ultimate Rewards Points into $650 cash back in the form of a statement credit.

Click on “Pay Yourself Back” which is on the left side of the screen under “Use Points”

65,000 Ultimate Rewards Points = $650 in Cash Back

Step 2 – Convert Points to Cash

The Ultimate Rewards portal will automatically assume that you want cash back for your entire Ultimate Rewards balance. But you can change this to any amount you want, as long as it is at least 2,000 points or more.

Convert Ultimate Rewards to Cash Back

2. $812 TRAVEL VIA ULTIMATE REWARDS PORTAL

Ultimate Rewards Points are worth 1.25 cents per point when you book travel via the Ultimate Rewards portal. This means that you will get $812 in travel with 65,000 Ultimate Rewards points.

A roundtrip flight from Kansas City to Chicago would cost 17,424 points or $217. The advantage of using the Ultimate Rewards portal is that it can sometimes cost less than the 25,000 miles required on other airlines for a flight.

Another great advantage is that you can book any flight with Ultimate Rewards points. It would have been cheaper to use 9,000 Avios points to book the American Airlines flight below, but there was no availability on American Airlines.

But you can still book it with ~17,000 Ultimate Rewards points.

17,424 Ultimate Rewards Points For A Roundtrip Flight From Kansas City to Chicago

4. UNITED FLIGHTS

United is a transfer partner for Ultimate Rewards so you could redeem miles on United or a Star Alliance airline partner such as Lufthansa, Thai, Air Canada etc.

It is only 25,000 miles for a domestic round trip ticket and 12,500 miles for a coach one-way ticket on United Airlines. 65,000 Ultimate Rewards Points is enough for two round trip tickets and one one-way ticket in coach!

You’d only be 5,000 miles short of two round trip tickets to the Caribbean for 35,000 miles each in coach.

A one-way ticket in business class to Europe is only 50,000 United miles or ~60,000 miles to Asia. You can search for these at United.com

The same flight costs $2,000 to $3,000!

60,000 miles will also get you a roundtrip coach award ticket Europe.

60,000 United Miles For a Roundtrip Coach Award To Europe

You could also fly one-way to or from India for 40,000 miles in coach, 60,000 miles in business class, or 80,000 miles in first class.

6. BRITISH AIRWAYS

You can also transfer points from Ultimate Rewards to British Airways in a 1:1 ratio. British Airways has a distance based award, and some of the best uses of British Airways Avios points is for short distance travel.

For example, it is only 4,500 Avios points for a 1-way coach award from Kansas City to Chicago using British Airways Avios points.

4,500 Avios From Kansas City to Chicago

Another good use of Avios points is to redeem them for flights on American Airlines from the West Coast to Hawaii for 12,500 points in coach for a 1-way award.

British Airways charges high fuel surcharges for most awards, but you don’t pay high fuel surcharges when you use your Avios points:

7. Priority Club

Transferring Ultimate Rewards Points to Priority Club isn’t the best transfer ratio because you can get more value by booking the hotel directly via the Ultimate Rewards travel portal.

Only 5,000 Points for a Room on the Priority Club Points Break List!

But it is worth it to transfer points to take advantage of the PointsBreak list when hotels only cost 5,000 points a night instead of 10,000 to 50,000 points.

bottom line

You can turn 65,000 Ultimate Rewards Points into at least $650 in cash or $812 in travel, but much more when you transfer them to airlines or hotel partners such as Southwest, United, or British Airways, or Hyatt.

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I know have mentioned that people can have 2 ink cards as in 1 with sole proprietorship (social # entered in app) and also another card with a corporation (business tax id entereed). Heres my question, I already have one ink plus card in sole prop business. the name of my company is not just my name. If I am going to start an ebay business, do you think if I apply now with my soc # again, but enter biz name as just my name, that I could be approved? Or would 2 sole proprietorships not be allowed in order to get a 2nd card?

@Helen – It depends. We have more Hyatt and Ultimate Rewards points than SPG points, so we prefer to use those points. I also have Hyatt Diamond status, but only Gold status with SPG. I do use SPG points, but try to save them as much as possible. It also costs more to book the top-tier SPG hotels than it does Hyatt hotels.

I just applied for the chase ink bold and the results are pending and will be mailed to me. I did apply for 2 chase Southwest cards in April and was approved. I just recently received my SW companion pass, thanks to you!! Should I now cancel my SW cards and then call the reconsideration line for the ink bold, or should I leave everything open and call? Will they see my SW accounts and question me about why I am opening another account? Thank you so much!!

LOL, had my weekly dose of Dariaus’s greedy CC pimpin, a pic of Emily holding random stuff and lots of arrows and circles. Now lets see what noob is crowned as a “renowned points and miles guru” tomorrow. lmfao.

Hi Daraius, maybe I am thrown off when you say “You can get 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points with the Chase Ink Bold and the Chase Ink Plus after spending $5,000 within 3 months up to Saturday, June 22, 2013.” But do we have to get approved by this date or is that June 22 deadline just the deadline for applications? Maybe the morning coffee hasn’t quite kicked in yet…

Hi, we had applied for the Chase Bold Ink card in late May and just received the card this week. We had applied when it was 50K bonus points. Do you think we can call the customer service and ask them to match the current 65K offer? Has anyone tried to do that yet? Any luck? Also can Chase points be transferred to your spouse’s account? Say if I have a Chase Sapphire and my wife has a Bold Ink, can I transfer my point to her Chase Bold Ink account? Thanks for you help!

Sigh. Come on Darius. Do your readers really need yet another “10 best ways to use an Ink card” post? I’d like a counter next to every Ink affiliate link you use, just so we’d all know how many times you flog these cards.

It’s a little silly, and pretty misleading, to claim that 22,000 Ultimate Rewards Points converted to Hyatt Points are worth $750 since that’s what a night at the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome is listed as. No one actually pays this cash rate for the room. You can currently buy Hyatt points directly from Hyatt for 1.85 cents each, so 22,000 would cost just $407 – which would be the absolute maximum cash value anyone should pay for this room.

@misty – I’ll post more on this tomorrow, but the main difference is that the Ink Plus is a credit card which means that you pay interest if you roll the balance to the next month. The Ink Bold is a charge card which means that you have to pay the balance back in full each month.

@Ganta – But it still doesn’t stop you for coming back for more!

@Chris – It is the deadline for applying.

@Ahsan – Chase has terrific customer service, so you could call or send a secure message and ask to be matched to the better 60K offer. Yes, you can transfer points from your Chase Sapphire account to your wife’s Ink Bold account.

@Cogswell – A-ha! The age-old question of how to “value” a mile/point and what is it “worth.” I can’t address that in the comments, but will do a post on that at some point. Yes, some people do pay $750 for the Park Hyatt, and if you didn’t have points and wanted to stay at the Park Hyatt Paris, you’d have to pay $750 too. But I agree that the ceiling price is ~2.5 cents which is what it usually costs to buy the points, though you can’t buy an unlimited amount of points.

I sent a secure message to Chase on Monday telling them of their past great matching awards position. I got a message back saying they would forward it to the proper department. Wednesday I got a message saying since I activated my Ink card in April they would match the current offer and have deposited 10K UR points in my accounts.

I just applied for the chase ink bold and the results are pending and will be mailed to me. I called the reconsideration line and mentioned that if it was credit limits on current cards, I was willing to lower the lines on other cards. The representative told me that it wasn’t that issue, that it was because of the volume of applications from the promotion, they couldn’t approve any cards in real time. Has anyone else heard that or is it worth calling again?

Hi Darius…Help!
I am so excited and nervous at the same time… YOU have me hooked!..I don’t want to miss this 60K opportunity and as you know I am new to this. I got the SWA 50,ooo pts AND already reached 2K spend requirement in 3 weeks … ALL for doing what I would normally spend. When I checked my rewards, I had purchased 2 tickets this past January and they put THAT on my rewards card.. I ALREADY have 57,000 pts AND they counted it toward the companion pass which is what I am trying to go for..It actually lists the 50K points toward the companion pass… I didn’t know it would do that.
Question 1: Chase Ink and Bold both say they points transfer to SWA… will they go toward the companion pass? If not please suggest the quickest and best way for me to work towards the companion pass. Seems I should work on that rather than have another 5K spend in three months on Chase INK.. Or am I not seeing things correctly?
Question2. Since they counted the rewards points from January, even though I didn’t sign up for the CC until 3 weeks ago, when is my “start” date for acquiring the companion pass.. January or May?
THANKS SOOOO much…

@Grant @Leonard – They are swamped with calls, so I’d wait a bit before calling back.

@readytogo – You can transfer points from the Chase Ink Bold/Ink Plus to Southwest, but they won’t count towards the Companion Pass. You could transfer them to Hyatt and them to Southwest and they would count, but you’l lose half your points in the process. The easiest way to get the points for the Companion Pass is to get the Southwest business card. You have to complete earning 110K points by December 31, 2013 and your companion pass will be valid from whenever you earn the 110K points up to the end of 2014.

Thanks…. I tried looking for SWA business card with sign up reward miles.. I cannot seem to find a SWA Business card at all with ANY reward miles. Just “reward flights” Do you have a link? Or is that the only one there is? In that case I don’t think I can make the companion Pass by December.. Any more thoughts?

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